Introduction

This year, the crop of books on p2p related themes has been so overwhelming that I find it impossible to limit myself to the classic list of just ten books. I therefore have organized the list as a series of 10 clustered themes. The order of the listing is influenced by the quality of the book (either read by myself, by people I trust, or through general recommendation) and the importance of the broad theme they are addressing.

Status Note: Please note this is NOT the official page, but a place holder and preparatory page, the 'official' top ten will appear on January 4 and take into account last minute suggestions

The List

1. The Theory and Practice of the P2P Counter-Economy

Marvin Brown's book is simply the most important book I have read this year, for its reconceptualisation of how to view the economy, no longer as an economics of property where labour, land and money are seen as commodities themselves, but as an economics of provisioning where those three inputs are seen as subjects (labour and nature), and as 'commons'. It's weak on how to get there, but it's important to know that's where we need to get.
By contrast, the equally important book by Kevin Carson is really all about, how do we get there, and examines in detail the transition to an economy that combines relocalized distributed manufacturing with global open design communities.

2. The New Forms of globalized P2P Governance and Enterprise

The David Ugarte / Las Indias trilogy consists of a history of respectively enterprise forms, governance forms, and network forms, each culminating in the distributed format era, and which have recently been translated in English.
But in this context our primary attention should go to this key book:

David de Ugarte and the colleagues at lasindias.net fill in the missing piece of one of the more important ingredients of a new globalized infrastructure of value creation, by highlighting the importance of the concept and practice of the Phyle, a transnational value community linked to enterpreneurial entities that have as primary aim the creation of sustainability of the new value communities.

3.The New Forms of Sharing and Collaboration in the Economy

Shared consumption is just as important as shared production, and both Rachel and Lisa have uncovered the new landscape of shareable use of goods and infrastructures. Jay Walljasper brought us a concrete guide for organising commons in our daily lives.

4.Logics of Natural and Cultural Abundance against the artificial engineering of scarcity

While we are waiting for the more theoretically grounded work in the upcoming book of Roberto Verzola, these two books do the groundwork of popularising this very important idea, that while there are objective 'scarcities' in the natural world, most of those we experience are actually manufactured by the existing global system. People go hungry not because there is not enough food, but because of the way, food production is currently organized, while the natural abundance of natural cycles is destroyed through terminator seeds, and cultural, scientific and even commercial innovation is impeded and slowed down through patents and IP.

6.The emergence of a P2P Left

People on the left are critiquing the embeddedness of much of free software and free cultural practice to the dominant modalities of capital accumulation, but doing so by offering constructive alternatives that makes use of the new technological affordances as weapons in the struggle.

7.The work of the scholars

Lewis Hyde's book, which I have yet to read, has been widely hailed not just for its scholarly but also for its literary qualities. The book on A2K has an absolutely amazing collection of essays on the movement for free access to knowledge.

8.The spirituality of P2P

The struggle against spiritual authoritarianism and exploitation is an important part of the p2p sensibility, and Jeff Meyerhoff's work, though written before, has only found a publisher this year. It's a brilliant deconstruction of the major faults in the integral theory of Ken Wilber and its authoritarian aspects. Bill Gibson reminds us of the importance of de-hierachising and peering in our relation with nature and its beings, and of the importance of a renewed understanding of the sacred, including by the secularly inclined.

Special mention: should have been on our list, but we have received no confirmation that it has actually been published yet. But, given his previous Ascent of Humanity book, it should be a really important publication.

Charles Eisenstein. Sacred Economics.

9.Emergent P2P and Commons Urbanism

If 2009 was the year of emergence for open manufacturing, then 2010 was the year for the emergence of a robust community of p2p urbanism. While we are waiting for the official publication of the book of readings by Nikos Salingaros, here are two treatments, one on Vancouver, and the other a very practical guide to the sustainable life in cities.

10.Other Important Books

Joseph Hanlon show the benefits of welfare state politics in Latin America and the global South, instead of the current model of neoliberal corporate welfare and bailouts for the speculators; while Jennifer Sertl's book is indicative for the new attention in business for redesign around communication and cooperation, and new styles of leadership.

10.A. Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South. By Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos and David Hulme.